Ethiopia’s tourism slogan, “land of origins,” is reminiscent of that of Egypt, “where it all begins.” Both countries are home to truly ancient cultures, Ethiopia’s first occurring in the 8th century B.C. Likewise, some of the oldest extant remains of modern humans have been found in Ethiopia, making it a contender for the nickname “the cradle of homo sapiens.” It was thence that our ancestors are believed to have set out for the Middle East and beyond.

Its writing system is said to be one of the world’s oldest alphabets, and it is home to the coffee bean, which was first grown in an area named “Kaffa,” which may have given it its name. Furthermore, modern Ethiopia was the first independent African nation to join both the now-defunct League of Nations and the continuing United Nations. This is due, in part, to its never having been conquered by outside powers (except for a brief period during World War II). Indeed, it was the only African country to defeat a European colonial power, when, in 1875 and again in 1876, the nation stood against a combined Turkish and Egyptian force backed by European and American “advisors.”

In honor of Ethiopia’s prowess, many African nations adopted the colors of its flag — red, gold and green (or, alternatively, red, black and green), known as the “Pan-African colors” — when they won their independence.

Surprisingly, Ethiopia is landlocked. Indeed, it is the most populous landlocked country in the world. It is also the African continent’s second-most populous country. Located in the so-called “Horn of Africa” (in the continent’s northeast), it stands south and southwest of Eritrea and Djibouti, west of Somalia, north of Kenya, and east of Sudan and South Sudan. The Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are only about 60 kilometers away, across Eritrea (which was finally liberated from Ethiopia in 1991).

Ethiopia today is mainly a Christian (63 percent) and Muslim (34 percent) country, with 90 individual languages, though about three-quarters of the population speak one of four closely-related languages, Amharic being the official one. English is the medium of instruction in secondary schools.